Question Time 4th June 2026
The Panel:
Andy Burnham (Labour)
Michael Winstanley (Conservative)
Robert Kenyon (Reform UK)
Jake Austin (Liberal Democrat)
Sarah Wakefield (Green Party)
Venue: Makerfield
As ever, the dullard of the family is sent to Question Time. Mrs Andrew Burnham is the interesting Marie-France Van Heel. A Dutch-born Belgian resident before she studied at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and met her future husband. Marie-France has worked as a brand consultant for most of her career. Her previous positions include spells at BSkyB and within her own firm, MVH Marketing. She has also been CEO of the London-based firm Heavenly, which designs logos for the likes of HSBC, England Rugby, and the BBC.
If you’re wondering why husband Andy is keen on net zero, electric cars and a (failed) clean air zone for Manchester, might it be because his wife sits on the board of Manchester-based public electric vehicle charging network Be.EV? And is also the Chief Marketing and Customer Officer of Octopus Energy Generation?
As for the man himself, QT Review HQ’s spies who are familiar with Burnham report him to be personable and both easy to get along with and to work for. They attach two important caveats: In conversation, while he’s looking at you with one eye, his other is scanning the horizon for the cameras. We shall address the second anon.
***
La Bruce introduced this as a special QT before a particularly significant by-election. Burnham was all in black, especially the jet black 56-year-old hair and THOSE eyebrows. Robert Kenyon was in black too, as was Michael Whinstanley, but with a white collar and tie. In fact, all of them were in black, except La Bruce, who was in bright green. With a red background and surrounded by dark-clad panellists, she looked like a gangrenous insisor in a mouthful of rotten teeth.
Question one: How can politicians restore trust and confidence, given the scandals, U-turns and broken promises?
It’s by changing the way we do politics, began Burnham. He continued by not only reminding the audience he was MP for neighbouring Leigh but by over-labouring the point by rhyming off his old Leigh wards now part of Makerfield:
Beat, beat, beat, beat,
Hinley, Golborne, Lowton … West,
Hin-ley Green, Bick-er-shaw …
it, it it, it’s…
G G G Grim Up North…
He then said an odd thing. When he became an MP and went ‘down there’, it took him a long time to realise that ‘the system was just not set up to support places like ours.’ Hmm.
Hold on a minute, Andy. Before you were the MP for Leigh, you were down there as part of that very Westminster bubble for many years.
Although born in Liverpool, Andrew Murray Burnham was brought up in the sought-after middle-class Cheshire village of Culcheth. The son of a BT engineer, Mr Burnham attended Fizwilliam College, Cambridge, and graduated in English.
Since then, he has not held any job outside of politics, a lowlight being as a researcher for the late Tessa Jowell, MP for London’s Dulwich, disgraced via her non-separation from husband David Mills after he was convicted of taking a bribe in return for giving false evidence on behalf of Silvio Berlusconi.
Other Westminster bubble positions before becoming an MP included being a parliamentary officer for the NHS Confederation, an administrator with the Football Task Force and a special adviser to Culture Secretary Chris Smith, MP for London’s Islington South and Finsbury.
Didn’t know how the London system worked? Pull the other one, Andy, it has (Bow) bells on it.
‘It’s the point scoring, the whole set-up of Westminster,’ continued Burnham, as the director panned the audience, pleading to find someone nodding in agreement. ‘It took me a long time to realise it. That’s why I left.’
No, it isn’t. He left because he’d lost two previous Labour Party leadership elections. In 2010, he finished fourth out of five, on 8% of the vote, a long way behind the winner Ed Miliband. In 2015, he came second, but on only 19% of the vote, a long way behind Jeremy Corbyn.
In 2017, Burnham stood down from parliament to successfully contest the mayoral election in Manchester, where he has held that position since. When in government, Burnham held several roles, rising to be a controversial Minister of State for Health, embroiled in the Staffordshire hospital scandal – another good reason to run away.
He reminded the audience how successful Manchester is and assured La Bruce that he will take Manchesterism down to London.
Which brings us to caveat number two. Those familiar with the man and his city worry Burnham’s apparent successful ’Manchesterism’ is based upon a few prosperous city blocks and suburbs, with the rest of the metroplitain area bedevilled with the likes of racial and religious segregation (Muslim Gorton, British Denton), drugs (Picadilly Gardens), ethnic rape gangs (Oldham and Rochdale), two-tier justice (Manchester Airport) and hostility towards Jews (the Gorton and Denton by-election again, the Heaton synagogue killings).
The suspicion being that Burnham’s enthusiasm towards Downing Street is also an opportunity to flee Manchester while the going is good.
However, the leftie London Labour media bubble thinks he can save their net-zero, high-tax, mass-immigration agenda from the incompetent hands of unpopular Starmer, so expect Burnham to be given an embarrassingly easy ride by the BBC on tonight’s programme.
Reberet Kenyon (Reform UK) suggested having real people as MPs rather than career politicians. He asked if people in Makerfield were feeling the benefit of Manchesterism. ‘They keep giving our council tax away, a bigger percentage every year is taken by Manchester.’
We need local people who want to stay here as politicians, not those who want to use the area as a stepping stone for other things, he concluded.
Unlike Puffin’s favourite Hannah Spencer, MP for Gorton and Denton (following Mr Burnham’s previous desperate and botched attempt to return to Westminster), Reform UK candidate Robert Kenyon really is a plumber.
While bored, kept Chesire housewife Hannah was doing an afternoon a week at the tech to keep her from sherry-addled Mumsnet slaggings off of her future constituency, Mr Kenyon was qualifying as a plumber, working for British Gas, going self-employed and starting his own plumbing company.
Upon joining the Army Reserve in 2020, Robert was a Combat Close Support Engineer in the Royal Engineers.
La Bruce changed the subject and found a plant in the audience scripted with ‘I’d rather have a career politician than an MP who’s a sexist’, a reference to Mr Kenyon’s alleged social media history. La Bruce read a list of archaeological social media finds her own script writers (Home Office contractors?) had supplied.
What was that about too much point scoring in politics?
Robert wouldn’t accept the sexist label, especially having been raised by a single parent, his grandmother and a sister.
In a bizarre twist, Carol Vorderman had been on the phone to the Green Party candidate. Carol is very depressed. Because of the numerous thus far unfulfilled promises to lick her bum? No, because Robert hadn’t apologised to Carol for such comments – that he didn’t make anyway. ‘I never said anything to Carol,’ he replied, correctly, ‘I commented on a comment.’
The Green candidate ranted sexist nonsense about all men and all women. ‘Me and my daughter…’ she wailed. Hmmm.
I wonder where the Greenie would be without her hubby? Let’s find out.
Sarah Wakefield is the Green Party candidate as well as a Manchester City councillor and a mother of two. She is a graduate in PPE from the University of Manchester and previously served as General Secretary of the university’s students’ union.
Her career consists of a 10-year stint at the Co-op as a sustainability and fair trade sourcing wallah. She has also worked in ‘food transformation’ at the World Wildlife Fund. Perhaps transforming live chickens into full stomachs in the lion’s enclosure?
A councillor for Manchester Deansgate, her declaration of interests suggests that Ms Wakefield is not of the barefoot-and-sackcloth variety of environmentalism – thanks to her partner, the interesting Alexander Christopher Edmund Lynham. As ever, the dullard is…
Mr Lynham is the sole director of three companies. DHF Falconer Ltd is a holding company, Ravensburg Property Limited is in property, and Envy Labs Limited is an information technology company, with, via information available at Companies House, a cool million pounds in cash in hand or at the bank.
How so? Because ‘Envoy Labs is a consultancy, node operations and product incubation business.’ Ah. ‘In the tech and fintech sectors, we have worked on digital transformation programmes, tech due diligence, and large-scale greenfield builds.’ Oh. ‘Engaging at the C-level, we aim to provide clarity as an SME to help decision-makers shape their strategic vision.’ Of course.
***
Despite, according to Oddschecker, each having a 0.1% chance of winning the by-election, the Conservatives, Greens, and LibDems are invited onto tonight’s programme, whereas Restore UK (on 9%) aren’t. Restore’s candidate is 53-year-old local businesswoman, Rebecca Shepherd.
***
We should judge politicians on what they do, began Michael Winstanley (Conservative), you have the right to vote people out. As for Andy, he said he was going to see out his full mayoral term, whereas we’re having this by-election.
Burnham didn’t look happy. He doesn’t like it up him.
‘No matter who wins the by-election, Starmer will be replaced,’ Michael assured the audience. Michael Winstanley OBE is the Conservative candidate and a former Conservative mayor of Wigan. Born in Makerfield, he served as a councillor for Orrell for 16 years. He also stood for Parliament in the seat in 1997, finishing a distant second to Labour’s Ian McCartney, with 6,900 votes to McCartney’s 33,000.
Rattled Burhman rambled, even to the point of saying that he couldn’t control what happened in politics, before making the fatal mistake of reminding the audience of his main opponent’s success in capturing 24 seats at the local elections.
We’re being served up more Labour Party, when we need radical change, quipped Michael.
La Bruce blamed the Tories because of the previous government.
Burnham took more incoming. A lady at the back said she watches the programme all the time (want my job, love?) and the politicians never answer the questions. We all know what Burnham’s real motivation is; why can’t he just admit it?
Burnham looked G G G G Grim.
Another plant in the audience called Robert Kenyon a sexist.
Which leaves LibDem Jake Austin. Jake is a graduate of the University of Salford, where he studied multimedia journalism. He holds an MA in Politics from the University of Manchester.
After graduating, he worked as a freelancer for Salford City Radio and spent three years in a Vodafone call centre before moving into marketing and recruitment. He later worked in local government, holding positions with Stockport and Manchester councils. Elected to Stockport Council in 2023, he is a full-time fundraiser for the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigners.
Jake was the Liberal Democrat candidate in the 2024 Manchester mayoral election. LibDem guff boasts that he increased their vote share, but omits to mention only from 3.2% to 4.5%.
Mr Austin made perhaps the most pertinent point of the night: ’This is a by-election to elect a prime minister by the back door, which isn’t the right way to do it.’
© Always Worth Saying 2026
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